Thailand cave rescue begins with four out of 12 boys freed in day of drama

In Mae Sai, Michael Safi and Veena Thoopkrajae have been speaking to the mother of one of the boys reportedly freed from the cave.

Mongkhol Boonpiam, 14, has been named by Thai media as one of the boys who was freed on Sunday. Namhom said she had only learned he may have been freed from reports on social media, which the families are tracking from the cave site.

“I just heard his name, Mongkhol, and I was happy enough,” she said.

She was sleeping at the cave site on Sunday night with many of the other parents and had not yet thought about what she would say once she saw him. “Let me meet him first,” she said.

First boys rescued from Tham Luang cave complex in Thailand – in pictures

We now have a more comprehensive transcript of earlier’s press conference.

“Today was the best situation – in terms of kids’ health, water and our rescue readiness,” Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the rescue, said at a press briefing on Sunday.

“Four have been [brought] out from the cave site, four have been rescued. We consider that a great success.”

He said the operation, which was launched at 10am on Sunday, had proceeded hours faster than expected. “It has been our masterpiece work,” he said.

“Our job is not completely done,” Osatanakorn said. “We will have to do the next mission as successfully as the one we did today. The rest of the kids are in the same spot.”

“Air tanks and systems have to be put in place again,” he said. “I can’t tell you exact timing of the next operation but I can say it will be more than 10 hours to 20 hours. It will not be more than 20 hours. I have to check all factors are stable. The operation then will be carried out.”

Daniel Sutton, an Australian journalist, has tweeted that the four boys were on stretchers when they emerged from the cave.

Daniel Sutton (@danielsutton10)

The four boys were on stretchers when they emerged from the cave. They’re now in hospital, some via chopper, some via road ambulance. Rescue mission to resume after masks/gear checked over and tanks replenished #tennews#thamluangcave#thaicaverescue

A few minutes after operation chief Narongsak Osatanakorn addressed the media, heavy rain began falling over the press centre, where hundreds of journalists are working to report this latest chapter in the the Tham Luang saga.

With raincoats draped over heads and computers, we feel just a fraction of the urgency that rescue workers must be feeling as water - the element that started this mess - continues to hamper the rescue effort.

Steve Whitlock, an experienced caver who was part of a rescue mission in one of the deepest mines in the world in Mexico, tells the BBC that its not over until all of the people are out of the cave, “including the rescuers”.

“I would caution people to just be a little bit careful because we’ve still got an awful amount of people who still need to come out of that cave.

Explaining how you would give a crash course in cave diving in an emergency situation, Whitlock says “you have to put them in the gear that they’ll be moving through the cave through.”

“You find a safe piece of water which isn’t submerged, ie not covered by a cave passage above, and you put them in the water, you see how they react,” he says.

In Mexico, he explains, the people he rescued did not swim, they following a rope out of the cave and crawled.

“Now they may well have used the same method [in Thailand], because the moment you make them neutrally buoyant - and that means that they can float around - they become more difficult to manage,” Whitlock says.

This means that they are not diving straight into the unknown and you are able to reassure them with your presence.

The rescue has been concluded for the night and will resume in 10-20 hours because “we’ve used all the oxygen,” according to Narongsak, who said the healthiest were taken out first.

For the next operation to happen, we cannot say. It will be between 10 and 20 hours, but not over 20. But we have to evaluate all the factors.

Air tanks must be put back into place,” he added, noting that today’s progress was a “great success”.

He said that 13 foreign and five Thai divers were taking part in the rescue and that two divers would accompany each boy as they’re gradually extracted.

According to the BBC, the rescue mission is slated to resume at 8am local time. It is currently 9:16pm.

Dan Johnston told the BBC News Channel that “its actually just falling quiet here” and “there’s been a lot of activity in the past few minutes” with people now appearing to be leaving the site for the evening.

One thing to bear in mind is the tiredness levels of the cave diving exerts who are leading this operation. They have been working busily all day and it looks like some of them are actually leaving the dive site now.

It looks like they’ve taken the decision that they have done as much as they can for today.

The operation is set to resume at 8am local time with officials and volunteers buoyed by the fact that their method of rescuing the boys by diving has been successful insofar.

The remaining eight boys and their coach remain at the original underground location near to Pattaya beach, suggesting that previous reports that six boys had been freed were inaccurate.